Reflection Essay

Kennedy Caubarreaux

Senior Project

4/30/15

I wanted to do this project because I am interested in health care. And also the reason I wanted to do this project was because I wanted to see if healthcare was the field I truly wanted to be in. Plus there is a big difference between acute care and long term care. I wanted to see which environment I prefered. I also wanted to accomplish gaining my knowledge on medical care and anything else that I could learn that would be able to aid me in the future. I wanted to accomplish my requirement for graduating while also learning a thing or two about college and medical school.

    What I did to start my project was call Ms. Jessica, the director of the Ahec program, and ask her if I could shadow her and maybe watch a surgery. She said yes and I went to Avoyelles Hospital as soon as I could. When I met with her, we went over patient confidentiality and times that I could go. Then next time I saw her we went to a few different parts of the hospital and we recapped what I knew from the Ahec program. After completing 13 hours with her, I went to Valley View Health Care Facility and shadowed the wound care nurse, Mrs. Veronica. And it was very interesting for me. I think my favorite part was going to the  nursing home, mostly because I got to see the things that were more interesting for me like the cancer wounds and things like that, it was more exciting than going around the hospital following a nurse. I know that I definitely do not want to be a nurse. I want to be the one getting my hands dirty and actually saving people’s lives, not going around every 3 hours and give them medicine. The best part of my project was watching a C-section. Even though Ms. Donna set it up for the seniors I still took the experience as part of my senior project.

I feel that I accomplished a lot, in the hospital, I did have the opportunity to help others which was nice, it’s always good to help other people. I think I have accomplished my goal of gaining more knowledge of the healthcare industry. I feel that I have really attained a better understanding of the way a hospital and nursing home runs.

This whole experience of finding something that I would truly want to do, to actually doing it was a big learning stretch for me. I was used to my parents calling people of authority for me, but this time I did everything myself. From just setting up everything to shadowing for 20 hours, the entire process was a learning experience. The thing that I learned the most is that no matter what job you have in a hospital or nursing home, every job is important, from the doctors to the house keeping. Everyone plays a vital part to the upkeeping of any institution.